Friday 23 May 2008 19.01 EDT
First published on Friday 23 May 2008 19.01 EDT

In the old Soviet days visitors to Moscow had two choices of entertainment, ballet at the Bolshoi or the state circus. Even for non-balletomanes the Bolshoi offered an excellent buffet and cheap champagne. The circus had high-wire thrills and a few clowns but no dumb animals to be pitied or applauded, according to taste.

Wednesday's Champions League final at the Luzhniki Stadium was mostly circus, being more about strength and athleticism than grace or interpretive movement. It was a night of excitement and uncertainty rounded off by the torture of penalties which no species should be expected to endure, even if it is capable of speech and reason. Alas, the clown was a bit of a let-down, the referee failing to see the funny-peculiar side of Didier Drogba.

Most cup finals are remembered more for the results than the football and European finals have too often been bedevilled by mutual caution. The game in Moscow became an entertaining exception because, while Manchester United and Chelsea both played to specific plans, individuals were not stifled. The better moments, United's goal and their two near misses in the first half, stemmed from moments of spontaneity as did the Chelsea shots that struck post and bar later on.

The readiness of both teams to attack made it one of the most compelling finals since the European Cup became the Champions League. The match may have lacked the crazy denouement which saw Manchester United beat Bayern Munich in stoppage time in 1999 or the heady drama of Liverpool's recovery from being 3-0 down to Milan in 2005 to draw level and win the shoot-out but it held the attention throughout. Television viewers nipping out for tea or pee risked missing a crucial piece of the action.

A 1-1 draw was the result which best reflected United's dominance of the first half and the strength of Chelsea's response thereafter. Once upon a time there would have been a replay two days later and, if ever a contest warranted a reprise, it was this one. But if it has to be penalties, they might as well add a suspenseful postscript and Wednesday's lottery kept faith with the familiar plot of heroic saves and heartbreaking misses.

Would John Terry have taken Chelsea's fifth kick had Drogba not witlessly got himself sent off for slapping Nemanja Vidic across the face? If so, Chelsea paid dearly for one lapse of collective discipline too many since the Drogba incident occurred amid an all too familiar blue mêlée. Drogba's failure to control himself possibly cost his team as much as Zinedine Zidane's bovine butting of Italy's Marco Materazzi fatefully deprived France of a crucial presence in the shoot-out which decided the 2006 World Cup final.

The collapse of Terry's standing leg on a skidpan of a pitch recalled the way David Beckham missed for England when Sven-Goran Eriksson's side drew 0-0 with Turkey in a qualifier for the 2004 European Championship. The Chelsea captain was distraught, Nicolas Anelka, whose kick was saved by Edwin van der Sar to give the title to United, less so. Terry's slip may have persuaded Anelka to take the short run-up which left the impression of a man bored by the proceedings and in a hurry to get to bed. After all it was 1.30 in the morning.

The third of Manchester United's triumphs in the major European tournament compares well with several aspects of the previous two. This time Sir Alex Ferguson got his team and tactics right at the start whereas in 1999, deprived of the suspended midfielders Roy Keane and Paul Scholes, he fielded a strangely lopsided line-up against Bayern Munich and was saved by his substitutes, Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

The success of Matt Busby's team in beating Benfica 4-1 at Wembley in 1968 was more emotional since memories of Munich were only 10 years old and much of the pain still lingered. United's football that night was initially less assured than their performance in Moscow, partly because of the physical attention the opposition paid to George Best, and they would probably have lost had Alex Stepney not saved point-blank from Eusebio in the closing minutes of normal time, when the score was 1-1.

The fusillade of goals from Best, Brian Kidd and Bobby Charlton that blew away Benfica early in extra-time turned out to be a glorious valediction for Busby's side, parts of which were ageing fast. Six years later United were relegated. Ferguson's latest team, by contrast, have it in them to achieve the sort of prominence in Europe achieved at various times by Ajax, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Milan and, not least, Real Madrid.

Whither Chelsea? Depends which side of the bed Roman Abramovich gets out of on any given day.